I can’t remember the number of personal projects that I already started.

From FTP clients to sharing screen apps. However, I’ve never really finished one.

A friend of mine laughs every time I say about something ambitions that my mind produced, because he know that it will end up in a dusty GitHub repository. (He also encourages me every time to launch the damn thing, but … )

Reason? I’m never satisfied with the result. The quality, the UI, the texts, similar apps. You can name it! I always find something that makes me sad with the project.

It’s never easy to give up on a project and I always end up thinking if that makes me a failure or a fraud.

However, in the end, it was where I learned the most (for real). It was where I could be free and do whatever I wanted. Empty canvas, no constraints. And it still are.

I started my first personal project when I was learning to write apps. I was already an Apple fanboy, so my only option was to learn Objective-C back in 2010.

It was a time when streaming wasn’t so popular where I live. We had a NAS and we filled with a few photos and files that we wanted to see in our big screen, but the only way was to connect a notebook through HDMI.

Then, we got the 2nd generation Apple TV that worked with a new iOS 4 feature called AirPlay.

The first thing that came in my mind was “I can write an app that will get the files and stream through AirPlay!”

Well… copy, paste, read and write. A few weeks later, I called everyone to see my new “invention”. And I called it AirNAS.

The codebase was a HUGE mess. An enormous UIViewController and everything you can imagine to go wrong. It opened from PDFs to movies, it had filters and shortcuts for your favorite folders.

Imagine 2011 macOSs Finder on iOS.

I never shipped. It never went through my quality process. But I learned so much. Code architecture, reusability of components, networking and much more.

(Fun fact: it still compiles and runs)

It was the first, but not last. And each of one made me learn more and more. My last try was a RSS client and it was the opportunity to learn the Swift’s new async/await feature.

It was what made me get my first job. It was what made me get where I am. So the answer for all my questioning is a big no.

If you’re on the same… trying over and over again. Feeling sad about it. Don’t worry. It will eventually work out. Or it already had.